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Thursday, June 4, 2015

Twenty Random Thoughts #030615: Maybe it's just about appreciating the small things

1. Life is where you open up your social media every day and see how tons of other people have a better life than yours. That person who is constantly on a trip, the news about the 20-year old who is earning millions and that douchey friend of friend of yours who got featured on TV. There are tons of comparisons out there.

2. Meanwhile you're just caught in the average life of yours, barely trying to scrape by. Your bank account hits zero at the end of the month while your loan stays forever the same.

3. I know all the talk about how we should not measure our life by how high we have climbed but rather the flowers that we have smelled along the way.

4. To me, that kind of talk always sounded defeatist. Like what people who cannot accomplish much would say to console themselves.

5. I know the importance of appreciating what we have instead of fantasizing about what we don't, but the problem is that we humans are not made that way. We are not designed to just be content with what we have. We were given the ability to dream big and the motivation to achieve the impossible as well.

6. It is our drive to constantly reach higher that propelled our species forward. It was those who dared to dream big that advanced our society, not those who were content just smelling flowers.

7. It is the exact same reason why those who made big achievements were celebrated and glorified, not those who smelled the flowers. Songs, movies, books and anything entertainment that we consume all have the same message: The only way to have an awesome life is to do something big.

8. Now, not all would want a life of glory and a significant amount of us are just happy with being average, away from the limelight.

9. Besides, we all have different abilities. To reach the top and to achieve a significant amount of change would require an incredible amount of talent and abilities. Which may be why we celebrate those who eventually do it.

10. The problem then occurs when you're given this motivation and dream to do big things and to change the world, but without the necessary skills and talents to accompany it.

11. To make it big, we all need an area of niche. An exceptional skill that makes us better than the majority of people around us. Only then can we stand out from the crowd. To be appreciated. It could be our speaking ability. Our affinity for science. Anything that makes us better.

12. When you don't have that, when most of the skills you have cluster around the average level, it's much harder to break away from the curve that is at the middle.

13. Your pay will be average and your worth will be around the same as well. Sad, isn't it? How our human worth is judged by the amount we're earning?

14. But I guess this is all depressing talk. If you really want to look at it from a pure practical sense, it is very hard to live on when your life is far from your ideal.

15. Which is why most of us switch our ideals, adjust our expectations. Perhaps this is what they call the cynism of old age.

16. While we wanted to change the world and be the top when we're young, we gradually realize that not everyone can be number one, and we slowly adjust our expectations to a lower level. To fit the grim reality.

17. Still we can choose to be happy with what we have. To just play the cards that we're given to the best of our ability.

18. Sure, smelling flowers may not amount to much, but they're still fragrant nonetheless. It's how we make do with it. Be it a simple picnic, picking up a new skills or travelling around the world with Jetstar promotions, we have to make do.

19. Why such an emo post? Maybe because my life now is what my 16 year old would absolutely hate but there's just no option to turn back time. And even if we did, I am sure that things would not change much.